Partnership – The Presidential Prayer Team

For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. – Philippians 2:13

Who does the work—God or you? The verse preceding today’s indicates it is a partnership. You “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” by yielding yourself to the Lord and His ways. In turn, He works in you and brings about the transformation. You may have heard someone say, “I tried to do it on my own and got nowhere, but with God’s help things worked out.” It begs the question, “What is God’s part and what is your part?”

Sometimes it is challenging to tell what is your responsibility. It often comes down to motivation and attitude. Why do you do the things you do? And are you grateful, full of faith, and have a heart for worship? Or are you questioning God’s goodness, grumbling, and complaining? Do you spend time in prayer? Prayer helps you connect with the heart of God. And studying His Word assists you in asking according to His Will (1 John 5:14). If you bathe everything in prayer, you can live your life in confidence that He is hearing your prayers, answering them, and working out everything for good.

Prayer is vital to your life and to the United States as a whole. Many believers are increasingly interceding for the country with urgent and persistent supplications to the Lord. Pray that God would move in the hearts and minds of the country’s legislators and citizens. As you do your part in prayer, express your love for God and gratitude for His goodness. Ask Him to help you love others in word, action, and attitude. Then trust Him to do His part.

Today’s Verse: Philippians 2:13

for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Recommended for further reading: Philippians 2:1-15

2 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, ²complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. ³Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. ⁴Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. ⁵Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. ⁹Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

¹²Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

¹⁴Do all things without grumbling or disputing, ¹⁵that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,